174 
IOWA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 
we passed northward through Otoe county and stopped in Cass 
county, Neb., opposite McPaul, Iowa. Here two weeks were 
spent drying material and collecting on the Nebraska side of 
the river or on the Iowa side around McPaul. Wabonsie 
slough, which is mostly the remains of a lake about two miles 
north of McPaul, gave us many good specimens. 
On August 25th we started from Nebraska City on our 
return. The route chosen was northwesterly across the valley 
and through the hills to Sidney in Fremont county, thence 
eastward to Clarinda, Page county; on across Taylor county to 
Mt. Ayr, in Ringgold county, the road scarcely varying a 
mile north or south from a due east and west line, the entire 
distance from Sidney to Mt. Ayr. Prom Mt. Ayr we turned 
southerly, toward Lamoni, arriving on the 18th of August. 
The following list of species is the result of the trips here 
described and the additional species found in Decatur county 
since our last paper was written. The specimens are deposited 
in the private herbarium of T. J. and M. P. L. Fitzpatrick. 
The list is by no means complete but represents very well the 
flora of the region for the period of time covered. The order 
Legumino^^^ is fairly well represented, midsummer being the 
time of its greatest development, while the great order Com- 
posituB has only fairly started by the latter part of August. 
The spring flora had passed out by the time we began work. 
The rectangle formed by the six counties. Union, Adams, 
Montgomery, Ringgold, Taylor and Page, presents much 
in common. A great portion of this region is an expanse 
of rolling prairie. Level ground is rarely seen save in the 
narrow bottoms or highest uplands. The ground near the 
streams rolls heavily, but gradually reduces to long swells as 
we go farther from the streams. Much of the land appears as 
long narrow ridges running parallel with the streams and 
flanked at sharp intervals with small lateral ones. The ridges 
are of the typical Kansas drift, covered with a thin black or 
blackish soil, while the valleys are alluvium, deposited from 
overflows of the streams or carried down from the uplands by 
surface wash. 
Grand river and its tributaries cross diagonally the east- 
ern portion of Union county, rolling southeasterly; Ringgold 
county is drained by the west fork of the Grand and Platte 
rivers, and their tributaries, rolling southwesterly. The 
southeastern portion of Union county is drained by the same 
